At the boarder the wheels of the train need to be exchanged, because the chinese and mongolian trains have different systems. the train is lifted up, car by car with hydraulic pupms.
in hohhot i made a break of my journey due to the family situation. first i didn't like this city. but i have to say over the days i started liking it more and more. it has it's own charme. most people there are really friendly! it is an interesting mix of different cultures. and the streetfood with the "yangrou"-kebab or the veggie-filled pancakes in the morning do the rest. i am putting on weight the first time in my journey. ;-)
one special sample for the friendly and helpful people i met: my phonecard which i bought in beijing didn't work. 2 days i tried to solve it with the mobile company but we didn't understand each other (i should have studied chinese). then on the second day another customer came in who spoke english. yang talked to the mobile guy and found out that they could only help us in another shop. we went there by taxi. yang wanted even to pay, but of course i wouldn't let him do so. once we arrived at the other end of the city he explained my problem and we were told that another shop only could help us. this one was in walking distance and yang insisted to come with me. he said he was so happy to practise his english. so we went there to find out that they also couldn't help. the only thing would be that i would buy a new card. we took a number and had to wait for about 1.5 hours. yang still waited with me. he helped me then filling the documents and chose the type of card for me. he even did a call to a friend to delay the dinner appointment for an hour. yang, if you read this again and again special thanks to you!
in the evening i went to exchange my busticket to a trainticket. hahaha, i bought it in the morning in the building next to the trainstation and was proud that it went so smooth. so i showed it to yang and he told me it was not a train but a sleepingbus-ticket. this explained the high price! the exchange in the evening was easy though and this time it was an advantage to be a foreigner. i asked a lady in the trainstation where i could buy ticket for train to yinchuan. she had a loudspeaker in her hand to tell the passengers to queue up orderly. with the speaker in one hand and me in her other hand she went to a line with at least 40 people. we passed by. through her speaker she ordered my ticket from the counter. they handed it out, i paid and apologized to the other people in the line. this time it was a real trainticket. the ticket for the bus i could give back and my money was returned.
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